Monday morning roundup

It's often said that the shift in American thinking from the Madisonian notion of Congress's function to one that sees it as involved in economic planning was a product of the Progressive era - Herbert Croly, John Dewey, Woodrow Wilson, Thorstein Veblen et al. It's true that that era did bring us the shift in actual policy implementation from Congress making law to executive-branch bureaucrats crafting regulations. However, as Jay Cost, writing at NRO, explains, the zeal for planning got going much earlier, when Congress developed a zeal for tariffs:

It was only after the War of 1812 that Congress began to take seriously the need for economic planning. The primary tool for this task was the protective tariff, intended to stimulate domestic industry by shielding it from competition abroad, particularly Great Britain. Yet it was not long before the tariff devolved into a regional logroll, aiding the North and West at the expensive of the South, which is what brought about the first threat of secession. The Tariff of 1828, often called the Tariff of Abominations, was, according to historian George Dangerfield, “an undisguised hunt for special advantages,” demonstrating that “the central government was expected to give assistance, but never to plan the assistance that it gave.”

As the 19th century wore on, the protective tariff took root in American political life. Arguably, it facilitated economic development in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution, but by the end of the century its purpose was predominantly political. Republican politicians used it to reward the industrial magnates who financed their campaigns, win the votes of the working class, and even buy off the Civil War veterans. The tariff produced a massive surplus in revenue, which was appropriated for ever- generous pensions for Union soldiers.

The tariff regime fell apart during the Great Depression, when the Republican-dominated Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. This law made manifest all the flaws inherent to legislative planning of the economy. Originally intended to offer added protection for industries in the midst of economic decline, it became the most obscene logroll in congressional history. The Depression worsened thereafter, free trade became the new aspiration, and economic planners turned to the income-tax code. 

The overall message is pretty clear: Congress, back away from the idea that your role is to plan the economy.

You've probably heard about the worst mass shooting in US history by now. Some guy, later shot dead by police, had a fearsome arsenal of firearms on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in
Las Vegas and fired relentlessly into a crowd below that was attending a country-music festival. 50 dead, 200 injured.

Squirrel-Hair once again shows his tone-deaf bona fides in a weird tweet:

My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!

As Steve Berman at The Resurgent says:

This is the kind of sentiment you offer to the family of a person who just died at a ripe old age of natural causes, not people gunned down in the street.

But nobody ever said Trump as “good with words.” Or that he had “normal human empathy.” As one Twitter user responded to me.

Speaking of S-H, there's his response to Rex Tillerson's remarks the other day about a direct channel of communication with North Korea and the hope that it can bear fruit:

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man...

...Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!

Being nice to Rocket Man hasn't worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won't fail.

Now, Trump is not wrong about the failure of appeasement as practiced bye the previous three administrations. But there are so many weird things about these tweets: the decidedly non-boss-like suggestion that Tillerson "save [his] energy, as if Tillerson were making decisions autonomously, the employment of the decidedly juvenile moniker "Little Rocket Man," and of course, the blustery "I won't fail." Just like you've built a southern-border wall, repealed the "A"CA and simplified the tax code, S-H?

One for the Southern-Poverty-Law-Center-is-a-culturally-poisonous-jackboot-organization file:

It’s an understatement to say that I was dumbfounded as to how I ended up on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) LGBTQ hate-list — I have never said or done anything to indicate hate for the LGBTQ community. When I called to inquire, SPLC informed me that I am guilty because I did a radio interview with Family Research Council Radio (FRC). I am a program coordinator for The Leadership Institute's Campus Reform. org. The segment was about socialism, but because FRC holds traditional family values, I was labeled an LGBT-hater just for being a guest on the show. No LGBT topics even came-up.

Catslonia's push for independence from Spain involves an intricate set of motives and historical trends, but we can say for sure that in its present form, it would greatly complicate matters for Spain and the EU.